Here’s something for Labour to bang on about till the next election, commission a local version, and keep on banging on about it till everyone groks it:
Ah, reality comes in to bite the neo-liberal economists again but I’m sure that they’ll just continue to ignore it. After all, if they went around acknowledging that their theory didn’t work then they wouldn’t be able to continue to justify capitalism.
After the great depression both sides of the political fence agreed to putting the capitalist system in chains so as to serve mankind. About 30 years ago, the chains were unlocked by those who had forgotten what damage it will wreak to society.
indeed it does exist (though I can’t think of any real world examples – which is a good thing)
Though neo-liberalism, taken to tit’s logical conclusion, would lead to a system not to dissimilar to Anarcho-capitalism. Prebble once mused that police could be privtised which would fit into a Anarcho-capitalism model
though I can’t think of any real world examples – which is a good thing
I always thought Somalia was the nearest thing to its inevitable result…
Like classical liberalism, and unlike anarcho-pacifism, anarcho-capitalism permits the use of force, as long as it is in the defense of persons or property. The permissible extent of this defensive use of force is an arguable point among anarcho-capitalists. Retributive justice, meaning retaliatory force, is often a component of the contracts imagined for an anarcho-capitalist society. Some believe prisons or indentured servitude would be justifiable institutions to deal with those who violate anarcho-capitalist property relations, while others believe exile or forced restitution are sufficient.[47]
The problem is that given those set of characteristics and that there is no institution to constrain violence, then I’d expect it to rapidly do a Somalia…. Warlords and personal fiefdoms.
It has been raised here many times as a question for libertarians of various shades. For some reason they seem to avoid answering this as an objection. The nearest that anyone gets to it is postulate something that looks astonishing like “because I said so….”
the rule of law could arbitrarily set in an anarcho-capitalist society based purely on the whims of which ever agency or individual owns the contract for the police force. But then again, another person has no constraint on owning and creating their own security force so, you are quite right, the end result would be rulers of their own fiefdoms.
Somalia is a good case study I guess but it doesn’t have the massive corporatism (as far as I am aware) which would result from a Western anarcho-capitalist society.
nah, it’s a load of wank.It’s square circleism, which is why it dosenae exist. Sure, there’s people blathering about what it might look like, but that doesn’t make it exist. FFS, timecube!!
What do you need for capitalism? you need defined property rights, enforced by a legal authority. Pretty hard to build that in anarchy, which is the fucking absence of legal authority.
have a read of what they say. lots of talk about what sort of things would be ‘justifiable’. Justifiable to whom? is a question that doesn’t get mentioned a lot.
That’s not anarchy, it’s minarchy.
You could argue that capitalism might be emergent from a state of anarchy, but then you just delay the squaring of the circle. How can you set up the social infrastructure capitalism needs without enforceable property rights? And if you don’t have enforceable property rights how is it capitalism?
I’m not sure they had forgotten at all. They could quite possibly have been saying to themselves… “we’ve got 30 or so years to make a killing out the chaos this will cause before the whole thing implodes.” The financiers make money on rising and falling markets… volatilaty is good.
DtB. The theory works just fine and as intended. The lies given to us over the reason for applying the theory and its intended consequences are the problem.
Says a lot about the ridiculous world of disconnected, politically driven theory we live in when somebody has to do a study to ‘find’ – to all intent and purposes – that ‘hitting your thumb with a hammer’ results in a sore thumb.
The question is why we allow such crackpot bullshit (repeated hammer + thumb = pleasure) to gain any measure of importance in our lives? And if the answer is because we ‘have no choice’ insofar as all ‘our’ politicians push crackpot b/s, partly or wholly because self promoting corporate, politically motivated media generally embrace such crackpot b/s and denigrate any politician who doesn’t – then what are we to do?
Just did a ‘future lifetime’ costing of rich people’s unpaid fines and charges, its trillions of dollars
lost to the tax payers. Its a pity because welfare is one of the most cost efficient ways of
providing for the poorest yet found, lowers cost to disease, ends ghettos, abates crime at
its beginnings, unlike wealth that sees the richest run off with massive unreturned stolen money.
The rich even have schemes, Ponsi schemes,… if only we were to stop the rich starting
finance companies….
…or are we to expect a percentage of people in whatever walk of life to fall through the
gaps, and so a lifetime costing of some benefitaries is essential moronic, worse
discriminatory, since those entitled to welfare aren’t criminal financial fraudsters.
KidsCan and feeding the masses.
From what we saw on Campbell Live last night, the “food” provided was lunch-box fillers. Doughy, bland snack bars, tiny raisin packets and catering size tins of baked beans and a small tub of peaches in syrup and some loaves of bread. Yes, some schools are getting (One-piece-of-fresh-fruit-one-day-a-week) – that is not a daily ration either. Yet Key and Co are being let off the hook here by this really well meaning organisation – being frequently quoted on programmes like Q+A as the answer – they are a start, yes, but not the answer.
I semi watched Campbell whilst on the phone: what really pissed me off was the comments from viewers at the end, three of five said words to the effect that the parents were to blame (read it has nothing to do with money). It would seem to me that we have a very nasty attitude as a society to those less well off than ourselves, “kill the poor” seems to be the default setting for “middle NZ”. No wonder Key gets elected.
Its the inevitable result of a broken down divided society, who has been told at an individual level, its all about you. Worst of all. people who are inclined to feel its actually all about them, also think they understand what is happening in the world, ou know they watch CNN, SKY News etc, which creates a disconnect inside them, that the poor, and those in poverty, is largely a choice they have made, its all their fault for being poor and impoverished.
What these people fail to appreciate is that this has been designed, like the financial system, it cant currently be any other way, but because people are so stupid/selfish, they don’t realise that they too are set to become the poor and impoverished, somewhere along the timeline.
Perhaps if people could get this through their thick heads, they may start to understand their views are going to become a self fulfilling prophecy they will not have seen coming.
Thanks Muz, I will put the positive side back on. Occasionally I get a very dark attitude with my fellow humans, which sort of clashes with my preferred modus operandi of doing something about it for other humans. And If the glum thing overcomes me I will take sly pleasure in the discomfort of newly impoverished “aspirants”.
Where there is greater inequality, more people will be deprived of the jobs, incomes, housing and cars which are the markers of status. Vulnerable to the humiliation of
relative poverty, they will be particularly sensitive to feeling disrespected and looked
down on and unwilling to ignore incidents which appear to involve a loss of face…
“It’s just gettin’ worse an’ worse round here. Rotherham’s just dog
rough now, it’s fuckin’ dog rough man. All you get…is people eyein’ yer all
time and a lot of ‘em aren’t hard at all, ‘cos hard doesn’t have to bother.
…who wants to live with every time yer go out of the door some fucker’s
lookin’ at yer? There’s this bloke on our street…, parks his (car) there and he
eyes me out all time. One of these days his goin’ t’ catch me in a bad mood
and I’m gunna …ask him what his problem is. … There’s something wrong
with ‘em, they’re not right in the head. There’s just more and more fuckin’
weirdo’s about. You’ve got to keep yourself fit an’ strong, and you’ve fuckin’
got to be able to fight because more an’ more now it’s comin’ down to that
‘cos it’s the only thing these wankers respect. I mean if they know yer ‘andy
and they know you’ve got hard friends – (John’s) popular just cos he’s
fuckin’ hard, he’s respected and it’s all there is for us now. They walk past yer
and they stare at yer and first to look away is the weaker one and once they
see you as weak, then you’re a target to ‘em. Unless they know you’ve got
heavy friends. … It’s fuckin’ rough.”
Wilkinson R. Why is violence more common where inequality is greater? Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 2004;1036:1-12
Bored, I think we are witnessing a symptom rather than a cause.
Why isn’t anyone pointing out that this “food in low decile schools because low income families don’t have enough money to feed their children” caper is just one more banana skin on the big slippery reversion to Poor Law thinking? Nobody wants to see hungry kids at school, but we can’t let this get in the way of what this means in the bigger scheme of things. We’ve already accepted food banks as a legitimate part of our formal welfare system – government refers people to food banks for God’s sake, and who would’ve predicted that back in 1991? We’ve also got Whanau Ora – sounds great because it’s supposedly about giving power back to Maori and who can say that’s a bad thing? Won’t be long though when we hear Key and Bennett saying it’s such a success that we’re handing welfare over to the community to deal with because “they’re so good at it”. They’ve all but done it with our young people. The Left are playing right into the hands of the greedy money fiends by letting us slip slowly but surely back into the deserving/undeserving mire which our current welfare system was designed to get us out of. It’s not hard to see what Key/English/Joyce/Bennett et al are doing and why they want this to happen.
We’ve also got Whanau Ora – sounds great because it’s supposedly about giving power back to Maori and who can say that’s a bad thing? Won’t be long though when we hear Key and Bennett saying it’s such a success that we’re handing welfare over to the community to deal with because “they’re so good at it”.
Problem is, Maori are better off running their own welfare, simply because the mainstream is so crap at it.
Maori are better at serving the social needs of their communities, if funded appropriately.
Hear thru the kumara vine that funding discrimination is occuring at the DHB board level regretably
centralisation of contracts etc
No real issue with Whanau Ora as long as it isnt used to replace the current welfare system, though it seems to me, from the series that was running in the herald some weeks ago, it appeared that tribal groups were using it to dicate to members how they should live their lives. One woman was told to give up her phone/internet service, even though it would be a false economy.
It would seem to me that we have a very nasty attitude as a society to those less well off than ourselves, “kill the poor” seems to be the default setting for “middle NZ”. No wonder Key gets elected.
I think Chris Trotter was right on the Union Report this week. There really is a nasty streak of authoritarianism in this country.
We’ve never really had to fight for our freedoms (yes, I know the World Wars, but we were never directly imperilled), they were just developed as this country progressed. We imagine ourselves as a caring society, but that is just part of the national myth.
The ultamite irony is that those people you mentioned will have benefited from Labour’s 1935-84 welfare/social security state. From free school milk to Housing Corp loans and everything in between.
Its pretty simple, when the powerful get arrogant they ignore their duties and start
blaming the great unwashed. Welfare is the most efficient way to save trillions in
costs on the people, from disease, to poor housing, to poor nutrient, to ghettos,
to having a healthy skilled workforce. Essentially National aren’t about to attack
everyone, remove all business and in work welfare, they are only going to remove
all support from a very few, those most likely to be ignored by the system.
Its just nasty and despicable, and yes you guessed it, cost more in the long run.
In more crime, more disease, more run down housing, more social disruption.
Yep go and read some of the comments on the program. I had to recheck that I was still living in NZ. I tell you it’s scarey the way this is going, it’s standard Nact practice divide and conquer, but this time we are all wired up to the web, and the war is in here!
I think that more and more people are getting fed up with the party line bullshit, and are looking for something different, I can’t say that whats written in here is true, it’s not, it’s opinion, it’s the opinion of a broad spectrum of people and in here apart from the trolls we are all equal (well moderators above equal) and no laughs at what you say. Unless it’s complete troll or stupid talk then the above equal part comes in. And the fact that the name of the Standard and other blogs have been mentioned in the MSM (thanks Bryce and Gordon) people have to come and look (I could be talking out of my ass here But Lprent are the visits by new people up and new members up as well?) If they aren’t then lets hope for more media coverage and a member to win Lotto to help fund. There are some very knowledgeable people in here from all walks of life. Unfortunately until we get more readers their voice is lost in the babble of MSM drivel.
What I am trying to get at is this unless we adapt to the way things are happening on the net, in the Blogs, the MSM and to the way the Nats are using the net we will lose and keep losing. They have the joyous intelligence of The Whale, and of course their tame troll Farrar. And of course Hooten, king of the shout down what ever he is.
You can see it in the coverage of the ABC fight, Half of the insider leak I suspect was probably from the fantasy of Whale and his boyfriend Duncan. The response was immediate and in some cases way over the top and it keeps happening. And we get bad press the Rabid left blog shit from the likes of JA on the Herald and the same on Stuff.
We have Paula Benefit stripping away our rights, Widows will lose about $8.30 a week, if you miss 3 calls benefit slashed, turn down a job, benefit slashed, fail a drug test? Yep Again benefit slashed. And I really don’t have the energy or knowlege to go into what Parata is doing to education I need to learn. I am shocked at the bullshit coming from Brownlee in CHCH. Then there’s that happy Joyce creator of the latest white whale MOBIE so that makes him Capt Ahab and we all know how that ended.
And it keeps happening. And why does it keep happening ? Because there is bugger all opposition to the plans of the Natcs, they get away with lying, cheating, bullying, etc and still they are not taken to task
Why NOT?
There needs to be change major change in the Labour party they need to get back the people who at the moment know that NO ONE gives a shit about them. They are the forgotten kids of 16 and 17 they are the next generation of voters, but if they see the shit that Key pulls, and gets away with, ALL the fucking time, no wonder they just don’t bother. The infighting in the Labour Party must stop it has to. it is diverting attention away from what is important, but what is important to the LP at the moment ? It seems that power rather than their constituents is the important thing. They forget we voted them in. DID they not get the message that was sent at the last election? it seems not. They need a complete clean out a democratically elected leader Get the cronies out of the picture, (this ME politics is bullshit.) how many more seats do they have to lose (hopefully to the greens BUT I fear not) to finally get the message?
Wow sorry i needed to clear my thoughts and a sleepless night don’t help. go ahead and pick it apart I look forward to any and all criticism. Oh and please DNFTT.
Lets pick up some shovels and as an act of civil disobedience, turn up at every low decile school and plant fruit trees in their grounds, as a symbol of the community wanting to feed it’s children.
Several schools ran Enviroschools vegetable gardens with the assistance of grants, and Professor Delorus Umbridge of the 2009/2011 National Government scrapped the funding, but was forced to reinstate it partially because of public outcry.
Other schools are planting areas of the ground in orchard through grants from their local councils. It will take a good 5 years plus for these trees to start producing sufficiently though … what happens in the meantime?
Well for one, hopefully Bill Scrooge and Joky Hen and their mean administration will be history.
There is an interesting article in this morning’s Herald discussing a JB Were report which raises concerns about NZ’s financial system and suggests that the Reserve Bank should be taking an active role in suppressing the value of the kiwi dollar.
Researcher Bernard Doyle is quoted as saying “[t]he RBNZ is one of the few central banks running relatively orthodox monetary policy” and that it was a “rarity in the global economy,” with positive interest rates and no policy to print money. “Unfortunately, in a world where the major central banks are breaking all the rules, this is not an advantage,” he is quoted as saying.
With the US, Europe and the UK printing dollars and providing cheap credit the NZ dollar will inevitably continue to increase in value as Asian banks seek out the highest interest rates. So the export sector is in for another clobbering.
And the Government’s response? Do nothing and leave it to the market. The only problem is that there is clearly not a free market operating.
Key naturally said that concerns about the financial system were “nonsense”.
Oh for a government that actually thought it should try and achieve some good …
I see it is the first anniversary of the occupy movement. So how did that storming of the Bastille, that many here were sharpening their pitchforks for, pan out? snigger.
CHANGE OF FOCUS: The Occupy movement has influenced the national dialogue about economic equality, with the word “occupy” itself becoming part of the public lexicon.
VARIED IMPACT: The protest movement is credited with a range of more concrete accomplishments, from influencing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s about-face on a millionaire’s tax to helping to save an Atlanta church and veterans’ homes from foreclosure in Atlanta and Minneapolis. In Rhode Island, Occupy Providence won a temporary day center to serve the homeless during the winter.
Small achievements are still achievements, and Occupy has taught societies a lot and connected struggling classes around the world. Connecting struggling classes worldwide is a pretty massive change in global discourse. The fact that your even scoffing at it while probably watching spanish mining strikes, a French socialist president and the Arab fall on the the tele news, all which are connected to the change in discourse, shows how clueless you are to the flow on effects of a connected global movement.
Maybe the PoAL with make it a bit more relative to NZ for you monkey breath.
they’ve taken a leaf out of your book and are going to climb the empire’s state building and get shot to pieces like your arguments do most days here primitive primate!
Watching Key on TV3 this morning and when asked about Tainui not coming to a Hui on Water? With a shrug of his shoulders, “It’s a free world” What a bullshit answer. That’s the sort of answer you give if you just don’t care about the question, or what the out come could be, It just shows what a culturally insensitive pig he can be. And he is just going to bulldoze these thefts through at any cost and to hell with the consequences. And the bribed and blind middle class are going to hand it to him on a plate, and the rest of us will pay for it for ever.
you didn’t include the opium or marijuana and Carlyle Haliburton and blackwater(now has a new name).
The US war machine has already made $1.4 trillion Dollars out of Afghanistan!
Remember the proposed oil pipeline to shift oil from the north of Afghanistan to the Pakistan borders. Was it the real reason for USA getting into Afghanistan?
The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI) just got signed off the other week. It’s a gas pipeline. Not oil. It was first proposed back in the mid-nineties and the NYT reported at the time on how it was a wonderful idea insofar as it sidelined Iran and Russia.
But the Taliban never controlled the north of Afghanistan and so could never have guaranteed its safety, hence, perhaps the massacre at Mazar e Sharif in 1998 was, at least in part, a clumsy attempt by them to secure control of the vital NW region?
Pre 2001 the Taliban had attempted to give over Osama bin Ladin on a number of occasions. But the US were never exactly helpful in securing his extradition to a third country.
By late 2001, the only pre-text that would have allowed the US to invade was if the state of Afghanistan could be tied to the terrorism of Sept 01. (To invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter) And so we are sold the story of the Taliban being in cahoots with Al qaeda and therefore responsible for the twin towers etc.
And the Taliban tried to give up Osama bin Ladin again. And again the US were less than helpful.
If you look at the proposed route of the TAPI pipeline and the position of major bases (which can will remain operational under either a residual US led force backed by mercaneries or by mercanaries on their own – there are already thousands employed in Afghanistan), there is a rather obvious correlation…SW Afghanistan running up to Turkmenistan.
btw. India finally signed on to the TAPI project (welching on an agreement with Iran for a different pipeline) because they got nuclear technology from the US. And the only reason they got nuclear technology from the US was because P Goff gave up NZ’s veto on the matter.
After 9/11 the Taliban agreed to give Osama up if the US provided some evidence that he was involved/responsible for the attacks. The US wouldn’t/couldn’t.
Its also interesting that the FBI’s most wanted page for Osama bin Laden never included any apportion of blame for 9/11
“The FBI page states: “Usama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. These attacks killed over 200 people. In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world.”
When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on the FBI’s web page, Rex Tomb, the FBI’s Chief of Investigative Publicity, is reported to have said, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.” http://www.twf.org/News/Y2006/0608-BinLaden.html
Before 9/11 the Taliban had Osama on trial for the Tanzania and Kenya bombings. But they had no evidence and so asked the US to supply what evidence they held for the prosecution. The US had already sent them a few cruise missiles and in response to a request for evidence sent a taped ’60 Minutes’ TV interview and a copy of some published magazine article. And so, the Taliban let him go.
And there are other, on record, instances of the Taliban in discussion with the US seeking to be rid of Osama. (The US didn’t recognise the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan so there was no extradition treaty) All they wanted was some…any…pretext from the US and they would have handed him over to Saudi Arabia. But when you read the record, it appears the US wanted Osama to be just where he was.
Pre 2001, the Talban even tried to extradite him to Saudi Arabia becasue he had broken a religious edict to not speak of terrorist events. And the Saudi’s refused to ‘play ball’.
Well half the world’s lithium is in Bolivia. If it is anything like as large the price will likely drop. but it’s all unproven. And it’s hardly a rare metal and war engendering
Afghan mineral resources are worth a lot of money, sure. But that’s just icing on the cake.
The main course are the pipeline routes for oil and gas, allowing the volatile Persian/Middle East area to be completely avoided. That’s where the real strategic driver is. The ability to bypass the Straits of Hormuz and to bypass Russia is absolute magic.
In the same way that Western African wars had nothing to do with diamonds.
Hypothetically (of course) I would be interested to see how much of a flying fuck PG would have given if the Panguna mine didn’t exist. Or indeed how much of a grievance the locals would have had if the’d received more than 1% of the mine profits (another 19% to PNG govt).
Many/most wars are, at the root, about money. You just need a bit more copper to get the same conflict intensity than you do oil or gold.
Indonesia has claimed all of the western half of New Guinea since 1949, long before the mine, which only takes up a physically very small proportion of the province. The natives’ desire for independence would exist without the mine too.
National’s Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill (PDF) effectively kneecaps the ETS and ensures that New Zealand will fail to meet its international obligations. Giving the public only two weeks to make submissions on that bill, the amendments to the Climate Change Response Act 2002 puts a very flimsy case for economic growth ahead of the environment… In other words it lets the polluters off the hook…
Market rentals for base housing, coupled with the dirty little secret of NZDF housing getting sold off and taken apart bit by bit, which will eat up the 7% payrise that all NZDF personell are getting.
Is there any reason why soldiers cannot form a union?
Those who see the forces as a possible respite from transience, insecurity and poverty should really think again…
Decimation of a formerly secure US middle class community
“A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, and fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death.” – Chris Hedges
Pablo over at Kiwipolitico has a good article about the infeasibility of the US service economy.
The basic problem of reliance on services as the core of economic activity is that making money through facilitation is not equivalent to being productive. Nor is working hard synonymous with productivity. Americans work the longest hours and take the shortest vacations of all OECD countries. By that standard they should be light-years ahead of the democratic capitalist world in terms of real productivity. But they are not. That is because hard work and income earned in services does not, in the larger scheme of things, add real value to productivity. It may make the national quality of life better, but it does not advance the overall condition of the productive apparatus. It is the economic equivalent of silver–it is nice and attractive, very malleable, easy to buy, wear and replace, but is no substitute for the economic iron required to build and progress a nation.
And we’re following the same path to economic stagnation and collapse.
i rememeber when the ‘services economy’ was the current propaganda in Aoteoroa; Yawn and despair. More of the sl word (for those that do not Think like moi)
A bit ironic that the Topless Princess Kate and husband should be welcomed by traditionally garbed women in the Solomon Islads who were – umm – topless. We are a weird lot aren’t we?
The Onion is running a story (obviously satire) that Obama’s popularity has spiked after he punched a Wall Street Banker in the face. Makes you wonder though …
The purpose of this protest is to hand over a letter to John Banks c/- his electorate staff, to ask whether he would be prepared to be the MP to present the following petition to the House (given that he is purportedly so concerned about the slackness of local government electoral law?
Mr Banks says the changes are well overdue.
“As Charles Dickens said in 1838 the law is an ass – and it’s important that the Government cleans it up. No candidate for public office should go through what I had to go through.”
In order to prevent this happening to any other candidate – I look forward to The ‘Honorable’ John Banks, MP for Epsom, agreeing to present this petition, at his earliest available opportunity.
“That the House conduct an urgent inquiry into the findings of the Police investigation into the allegations that the Hon. John Archibald Banks, CNZM QSO, submitted a false donation return in respect to the Auckland Council Mayoral election 2010 – that it was not unlawful for the Hon. John Archibald Banks, CNZM QSO to sign and transmit his candidate’s declaration of expenses without first personally checking and verifying that the information provided (by another party) was accurate.”
(It is noteworthy that the first signature on this petition is that of Kim Dotcom.)
(Photocopies of this petition will be available for media.)
Actually getting this request to staff at John Banks’ electorate office is somewhat complicated owing to the fact that I have been trespassed from it for 2 years arising from my being arrested in it, on 18 June 2012.
Perhaps the Police will be able to help expedite proceedings?
(Have appearance in Ak District Court (Albert St) tomorrow Wed 19 September 2012 – matter will be adjourned – but will still have a protest outside
Court from 8.30am – 9am.)
To this moment, I guarantee you, Romney is probably astonished at what all the fuss is about. This is simply the way the world is. There is himself, Willard Romney, and his perfect family, and his perfect life, and there is The Help, and The Help gets drunk on the job, and prunes the shrubbery badly, and pockets the silverware, and makes off with the odd can of salmon out of the pantry. He is who he is today because his breeding and his genes and his god have arranged him to be through a serious of immutable laws against which only a fool or The Help would presume to argue. He is what his golden life has made him to be, and his golden life was only the bare minimum of that to which god and nature entitled him. To ask him to doubt any of this is to ask him to doubt gravity or the movement of the tides.
No one from the ministry would be interviewed. Instead it issued a statement saying it knows the one cent overpayment looks silly, but that it sends millions of letters a year through a system which doesn’t distinguish between amounts of debt.
Compare to
Education Pay
On th NovoPay website.
Many people may notice differences in their pay of up to plus or minus 10 cents. The reason for this is that Novopay, the new schools’ payroll service, rounds each component of pay separately and the accumulation may result in the up to 10 cents difference.
Season 4 of the excellent “The Thick Of It” is currently playing in the UK, as someone kindly noted in one of the social threads recently.
Do you think the David Shearer and the Labour leadership team are watching? I certainly hope so. The latest episode, aired a couple of days ago, is all about them.
Quite true… as Thom Hartmann on RT’s ‘The Big Picture’ pointed out a few months ago, the issue of African-American civil rights wasn’t among any political party’s policies until the protests started and the politicians saw the groundswell of public opinion.
Meaningful change has to start at a grassroots level, once a critical number is reached, the meme/movement/thinking hits mainstream. I wonder if we are beginning to see this in NZ with the issues of children in poverty and inequality. At present many are in denial or anger (“it’s the parents fault for making bad choices”, etc) which are just two of the 5 stages of awakening:
Could child-poverty and inequality, in which the state of both are an affront to what it means to be a New Zealander and the principles this country was founded on, be the trigger that results in NZ’s version of the Arab-spring uprisings?
what I want to know is who is the Mcguiness institute who are “voluntarily” assisting the constitutional advisory panel?
and why?
So who is paying them?
Where do they get their money from?
These questions must be answered if democracy is to be preserved in New Zealand.
THE ‘DEAR JOHN’ LETTER – handed over to Electorate staff at PROTEST OUTSIDE JOHN BANKS’ ELECTORATE OFFICE 27 Gillies Ave, Newmarket, today, Tuesday 18 September 2012:
The following letter was given to John Banks’ electorate staff by Jax (I have been trespassed for 2 years from this office, having been arrested for wilful trespass on 18 June 2012 – Court case tomorrow
Wed. 19 September 2012 CRI- 2012- 004 -113 21
Auckland District Courtroom 11, Albert St
9am (Protest outside from 8.30am)
_________________
OPEN LETTER TO THE ‘HONORABLE’ JOHN BANKS – MP FOR EPSOM
“As Charles Dickens said in 1838 the law is an ass – and it’s important that the Government cleans it up. No candidate for public office should go through what I had to go through.”
Given your above-mentioned publicly-stated concerns about the local electoral law ‘being an ass’, and needing to be ‘cleaned up’ – I would like to give you the opportunity to ‘put your money where your mouth is’ (as it were), on this matter.
I am formally requesting that YOU please be the Member of Parliament to present the following petition to the House, at your earliest available opportunity:
“That the House conduct an urgent inquiry into the findings of the Police investigation into the allegations that the Hon. John Archibald Banks, CNZM QSO, submitted a false donation return in respect to the Auckland Council Mayoral election 2010 – that it was not unlawful for the Hon. John Archibald Banks, CNZM QSO to sign and transmit his candidate’s declaration of expenses without first personally checking and verifying that the information provided (by another party) was accurate.”
You may find it to be noteworthy that the first signature on this petition is that of Kim Dotcom, whose financial assistance to your 2010 Auckland Mayoral campaign, you may recall?
Looking forward to your prompt response to this VERY important matter.
Listening to The Panel and an interview with a Banks Peninsula school about their closing down..after Campbell Live’s programme yesterday about another school in Christchurch.
Sounds like the ideas from ‘Disaster Capitalism’ by Naomi Klein and what happened to New Orleans after Katrina.
The new proposed benefit regime is intended to come into force from 15 July 2013, and it contains legal provisions under which the OUTSOURCING of assessments on beneficiaries for work capacity, of “work preparation exercises” and of “administrative services” will be made possible to private non government agencies and service providers.
There are obligations for ALL beneficiaries, incl. beneficiary parent(s) and caregiver(s):
● A NEW section 60 GAG by section 39 of Act to place obligation of beneficiary to work with “service providers”;
● Sanctions can be imposed under section 117 if client fails to comply with this;
● Attendance of “work preparation exercises” can be expected under section 60Q;
● See also section 125A (amended) re contracts with “administration service providers”.
Sole Parent Support:
● This new, more restrictive benefit is covered by new sections 20A to 20H;
● already announced “social obligations” will be expected.
Supported Living Payment:
● The new benefit that can be granted on grounds of sickness, injury or disability, and which is supposed to replace the invalid’s benefit, is covered by sections 40A to 40K;
● Supporting living payment recipients exempted ONLY if terminally ill, or if found to be suffering from conditions that are likely to deteriorate or “not improve”;
Consequential Amendments:
Re “supported living payment” benefit – see clause 88 re some changes in schedule 6 for present IB
Drug Testing Obligations:
and easily WINZ will place such obligations on job-seeker beneficiaries that are asked to have drug tests done on them for jobs where employers require this;
● A 50 per cent cut to the benefit can be imposed if a client/applicant fails such a drug;
● section 12J is to be amended to limit rights of appeals to the Appeal Authority if “medical” reasons are given (see sections 116C and 102B) for failing drug tests;
● WINZ will “compensate” employers for costs of drug tests where clients “fail” to pass them, and will then reclaim those costs from the clients (!);
● Beneficiaries who fail an initial drug test will also have to pay for re-compliance drug tests;
Social Obligations by beneficiary parents:
a) Enrol newborns with GP;
b) Participate in ECE;
c) Ensure attendance of school by children in their care
Stopping benefit payments for clients who face a warrant of arrest after 28 days of issue:
● 10 days notice, then a “cut” of the benefit can and will be imposed;
● an immediate “stop” is imposed if a beneficiary – against whom a warrant has been issued – poses a “serious risk to the public”
Disability Allowance changes and other ‘preferred supplier arrangements’:
● Possible “preferred supplier arrangements” for “procurement of goods and services” for welfare recipients in certain circumstances (see s 69C and also sections 125AA and 132AD);
● Under section 82 the C.E. can determine payment to preferred supplier or beneficiary for goods or services required as advance or special assistance needs (see also section 125AA);
● See also section 124 (1BA) for further provisions re “special assistance”.
Regulations:
● Section 132AD provides for regulations that can set harsher standards and criteria for how “disability allowance” funds paid to beneficiaries are to be used for “specified expenses”;
● Other sub-sections under section 132 provide for regulations to be made for the granting, expiry and re-granting “specified benefits” and so forth.
Re Application for Benefits:
● New sections 11E and 11H for “job seeker support” (incl. sick, injured, disabled) applicants, setting out “pre benefit activities” expected of them; new sections 11G and 11H set out consequences for applicants “failing” to meet such “activities” (incl. their spouse/partner);
● All beneficiaries appear to have to re-apply for their specified benefits (after 12 months);
● See also new sections 80BE and 80 BF re expiry, re-granting and so.
Work Ability Assessments:
● Section 88F sets out job seeker obligations for seeking employment, and under 88F (2) the C.E. must determine the capacity to work for a job seeker – granted that support because of sickness, injury or disability; this basically allows the C.E. to “over rule” medical based assessments (in some forms)!
● Hence a “deferral” for “job seekers” is discretionary and based on C.E.’s determinations;
● Section 88H (2) allows job seeker (with sickness, injury or disability) to “apply” for “deferral”.
● New sections 100B and 100C to require beneficiaries to attend and participate in work ability assessments (virtually ALL beneficiaries);
● Section 100B (4) leaves it to the C.E. to determine the way such assessments are conducted;
● Procedure(s) for doing this are determined by the C.E. or her/his staff (!!!)
● Section 100C also leaves it up to the C.E. to determine appropriate times and frequencies of re-assessments!
The existing medical appeal rights to a ‘Medical Board’ will in future be covered by a new section 10B (re-enacting section 53A), it changed only a bit
Sanctions:
● New sections 116B and 116C replace existing sections 115 and 116A for imposing sanctions of beneficiaries not meeting a range of obligations;
● Other sections address matters how other sanctions for non compliance are imposed;
● Section 116C (2) lists some exemptions from sanctions to be imposed for failing drug testing, like drug dependency, medication that is prescribed and needs to be taken by a client
Abatement:
A harsh abatement regime under section 88B (6) for jobseeker support (52 week earnings to benefit comparison); so if a person earns as much as she/he could get on a benefit within 52 weeks, that may mean, NO benefit, as a client/applicant may be expected to “save” and provide for unforeseen job-loss.
Ineligibility:
Section 88D penalises unemployed “job seeker” beneficiaries if “fellow workers” (of a union the client/applicant belongs to), caused industrial action (strikes) leading to resulting “unemployment”. This basically makes it yet more difficult to defend worker’s rights.
Appeal rights denied in certain cases:
When it comes to forms of certain payments of advances, of disability allowance costs and some other “special assistance”, there is NO right to appeal WINZ decisions!
This bill is a MONSTER bill, not only due to some controversial, excessively harsh provisions; it is so overly complex, it will be impossible to properly implement and apply in praxis. It further “over-amends” an old Act that has previously received endless amendments. The proposed changes make the Social Security Act extremely difficult to use and apply, as it is very difficult to do this already. Staff will face an administrative nightmare to use the law after all these changes. It would have been a better solution to bring in a whole new statute!
Ultimately all this will just re-enforce the reality we have already: That beneficiaries are second class, stigmatised and disowned citizens and residents in this country.
Thank gods for the Greens providing some goddamn opposition…
Jan Logie
Take your vitamins NZ
Published: September 18, 2012
by Jan Logie
….Because yesterday the Government confirmed plans to reform the sickness benefit system.
Basically they’re getting rid of the sickness benefit merging it into the wider job seeker benefit, albeit with some exemptions from work readiness activities if someone is deemed too sick….
…This legislation will require people diagnosed with cancer to focus on what they’re capable of, in terms of employment, rather than what they’re not. This will change once they’ve been diagnosed as terminal. If they want to keep working or look for work then great but if not surely a reasonable society would let someone battling cancer focus on that battle and not siphon their energies off into proving their work readiness or availability.
To require people who are sick to engage in work readiness activities and look for work assumes they don’t know what’s best for them. It even seems to assume their doctor doesn’t know either.
The evidence that shows the negative health impacts of income support is contestable and I don’t think it can be used to draw the conclusions that this Government has drawn. There is some evidence that receiving income support has negative health consequences, but this has not to my knowledge considered if this would still be true if the benefit wasn’t set below the poverty level. It also ignores the research that shows it’s actually worse to be in low paid vulnerable employment with poor conditions than it is to be on welfare….
I met a fair few people who have due to permanent health conditions been on the sickness benefit for years, while it is only meant to be a type of benefit for short to medium term sick and disabled or “incapacitated”. Really some of them should be on IB, but as most struggle to cope with WINZ staff, do not understand the law and their rights, they never dare to challenge decisions.
Cost saving has already been the agenda for years, and the government drums it into people’s heads, that there are 13 per cent of working age people on benefits, which is unaffordable. But why not compare the 320,000 benefit reliant with the total population then?
Much spin and manipulation, that is the truth. So many more thousands are supposed to take up jobs, while manufacturing goes down the toilet, jobs are harder to get and poverty is rampant even amongst low paid workers. So they are supposed to make a living by delivering each others pizza and burgers, cut each others hair and mow lawns, I suppose.
SB and UB are the same rate (IB is higher). The difference is that on SB you are not required to look for a job. Looks like they’re not going after IB this time round at a legislative level, although they are messing with it via policy.
Sickness beneficiaries have already been “work tested” since May last year – in at least some cases, where case managers or other WINZ staff (Regional Health Advisors, Regional Disability Advisors) considered them “capable” of doing some work (usually part time).
Hence there have already been many cases, where WINZ staff members interpreted certain information supplied by doctors on new medical certificates (called now ‘work capacity certificates’) in their own “biased” manner. Yes, they have in some cases definitely over-ruled what doctors may have decided, pressuring sick persons to look for jobs.
So much is not known in the wider public, it is NOT funny.
It will all get much worse, if this bill gets passed as it is written.
So key is doing gagagags as well as the fake hui and it’s all for the court case to come.
Prime Minister John Key says a decision by some Tainui iwi to boycott the Government’s water consultation hui strengthens the Government’s legal position should the matter end up in court.
On his way into caucus at Parliament this morning he was asked about the unity around the water issue at the national hui last week called by King Tuheitia.
He suggested that from the media reports he had seen there wasn’t unity.
“There are kind of more positions than Lady Gaga’s got outfits.”
Deliberate and it will fail, as I have said on my post
His deliberate ignorance is not an advantage it is a weakness and the more he speaks, the more that weakness is revealed. He thinks he is smarter than he really is – but he isn’t.
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A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Asia Pacific Report Students and activist staff at Australia’s University of Sydney (USyd) have set up a Gaza solidarity encampment in support of Palestinians and similar student-led protests in the United States. The camp was pitched as mass graves, crippled hospitals, thousands of civilian deaths and the near-total destruction of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James B. Dorey, Lecturer in Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong Australian teddy bear bees are cute and fluffy, but get a look at that massive (unbarbed) stinger! James Dorey Photography Most of us have been stung by a bee and we ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Roberts, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong Aussie~mobs/FlickrVictor Farr, a private in the 1st Infantry Battalion, was among the first to land at Anzac Cove just before dawn on April 25 1915. Victor Farr ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Gregory Moore I had the good fortune to care for the sugar gum at The University of Melbourne’s Burnley Gardens in Victoria where I worked for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra BagzhanSadvakassov/Upsplash, CC BY-SA Australia’s inflation rate has fallen for the fifth successive quarter, and it’s now less than half of what it was back in late 2022. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Ong ViforJ, ARC Future Fellow & Professor of Economics, Curtin University Just when we think the price of rentals could not get any worse, this week’s Rental Affordability Snapshot by Anglicare has revealed low-income Australians are facing a housing crisis like ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meighen McCrae, Associate Professor of Strategic & Defence Studies, Australian National University American and Australian stretcher bearers working together near the front line during the Battle of Hamel in 1918.Australian War Memorial While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tracey Holmes, Professorial Fellow in Sport, University of Canberra When the news broke last weekend that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive to a banned drug in early 2021 and were allowed to compete at the Tokyo Olympic Games six months later ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cally Jetta, Senior Lecturer and Academic Lead; College for First Nations, University of Southern Queensland Australian War MemorialAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people, as well as sensitive historical information ...
RNZ News Melissa Lee has been ousted from New Zealand’s coalition cabinet and stripped of the Media portfolio, and Penny Simmonds has lost the Disability Issues portfolio in a reshuffle. Climate Change and Revenue Minister Simon Watts will take Lee’s spot in cabinet. Simmonds was a minister outside of cabinet. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Lindenmayer, Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University laurello/Shutterstock Some reports and popular books, such as Bill Gammage’s Biggest Estate on Earth, have argued that extensive areas of Australia’s forests were kept open through frequent burning by ...
Analysis - Christopher Luxon framing the demotion of two ministers as the portfolios getting "too complex" is a charitable way of saying they weren't up to the job. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra With Jim Chalmers’s third budget on May 14, Australians will be looking for some more cost-of-living relief – beyond the tax cuts – although they have been warned extra measures will be modest. As ...
Analysis: Melissa Lee has lost the media portfolio and her spot in Cabinet after multiple failed attempts to find solutions for a media industry in crisis. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister announced Lee would be losing her spot in Cabinet along with her media and communications ministerial portfolio. The job ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Simon Wilmot, Senior Lecturer, Film, Deakin University Among the many Australian who served during the second world war, there is a small group of people whose stories remain largely untold. These are the Muslim men and women who, while small in number, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kelly Saunders, PhD Candidate, University of Canberra There has been much analysis and praise of Justice Michael Lee’s recent judgement in Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation case against Channel Ten. Many people were openly relieved to read Lee’s “forensic” and “nuanced” application of law ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathy Gibbs, Program Director for the Bachelor of Education, Griffith University zEdward_Indy/Shutterstock Around one in 20 people has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It’s one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in childhood and often continues into adulthood. ADHD is diagnosed ...
The Fairer Future coalition of anti-poverty groups say Whaikaha must be properly funded going forward, and that to argue that poor financial management of the new Ministry is a red herring by the Prime Minister. ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is today congratulating Hon. Paul Goldsmith on his appointment as Minister for Media and Communications and urges him to rule out state intervention in the private media sector. ...
Asia Pacific Report The West Papuan resistance OPM leader has condemned Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden, accusing their countries of “six decades of treachery” over Papuan independence. The open letter was released today by OPM chairman Jeffrey P Bomanak on the eve of ANZAC Day ...
Welcome to The Spinoff Books Confessional, in which we get to know the reading habits and quirks of New Zealanders at large. This week: writer and one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2024, Lauren Groff.The book I wish I’d writtenIf I wish I’d written a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Fechner, Research Fellow, Social Marketing, Griffith University mavo/Shutterstock Imagine having dinner at a restaurant. The menu offers plant-based meat alternatives made mostly from vegetables, mushrooms, legumes and wheat that mimic meat in taste, texture and smell. Despite being given that ...
“Three Strikes is a dead-end policy proposed by a dead-end government. The Three Strikes law ignores the causes of crime, instead just brutalising people already crushed by the cost of living.” ...
By Don Wiseman, RNZ Pacific senior journalist An Australian-born judge in Kiribati could well face deportation later this week after a tribunal ruling that he should be removed from his post. The tribunal’s report has just been tabled in the Kiribati Parliament and is due to be debated by MPs ...
With its clear mandate for police use, political nuances, and nuanced public trust, Denmark's insights provide valuable considerations for Australia and New Zealand. ...
Books editor Claire Mabey reviews poet Louise Wallace’s debut novel. A famous poet once said to me that he’s always suspicious when a poet publishes a novel. I never really understood why but maybe it’s something to do with cheating on your first form. Louise Wallace is a poet. She’s ...
For a few months at the turn of the millennium, TrueBliss burned bright as the biggest pop stars in the country. Alex Casey chats to two superfans who still hold the flame. During a humble backyard wedding in Nelson, 1999, one of the cordially invited guests had to excuse themselves ...
How will the recent wave of job cuts impact ethnic diversity in the media? In November last year, I was working a very busy day in the newsroom of a large online news site, interviewing whānau about their concerns over the imminent closure of one of the few puna reo ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ruth Knight, Researcher, Queensland University of Technology Have you ever felt sick at work? Perhaps you had food poisoning or the flu. Your belly hurt, or you felt tired, making it hard to concentrate and be productive. How likely would you be ...
Despite heavy criticism and an ongoing select committee process, the Police Minister says the Government will forge ahead with a ban on gang patches. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sam Whiting, Lecturer – Creative Industries, University of South Australia Shutterstock Everyone has a favourite band, or a favourite composer, or a favourite song. There is some music which speaks to you, deeply; and other music which might be the current ...
A new survey says ‘outlook not great’ for those charged with building infrastructure, while RMA changes delight farmers and depress environmentalists, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. First RMA changes announced ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olli Hellmann, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Waikato Getty Images When New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day on April 25, it’s not only to honour the soldiers who lost their lives in World War I and subsequent conflicts, but also ...
A leaked document shows the Canterbury/Waitaha arm of health agency Te Whatu Ora is scurrying to save $13.3 million by July. The “financial sustainability target”, which was “allocated” to Waitaha, is consistent with what’s happening in other districts, says Sarah Dalton, executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists. ...
A look at the state of the previous government’s affordable housing scheme, and what could come next.Remind me: What’s KiwiBuild again?First announced in 2012, KiwiBuild was a flagship policy of the Labour Party heading into both its 2014 and 2017 election campaigns. With Jacinda Ardern as prime minister, ...
Labour in opposition will be shocked to learn which party had six years in power but squandered any chance to make real change. Grant Robertson’s valedictory speech was a predictably entertaining trip down memory lane. The acid-tongued incoming Otago University chancellor administered a sick burn to the coalition government. He ...
Taiwan’s semiconductor industry is seen some as its ‘silicon shield’ against invasion – but how will overseas expansion affect that protection? The post The state of Taiwan’s silicon shield appeared first on Newsroom. ...
There’s relief for building owners bending under the weight of earthquake strengthening rules – and costs – that came into force seven years ago. Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk has announced a scheduled 2027 review of the earthquake-prone building regulations will now start this year. Owners will also get ...
Opinion: It has been announced that nine percent of roles at Oranga Tamariki will be disestablished, presumably to help fund the tax cuts promised by the coalition Government. I am reminded of the graphics used to illustrate pandemic events, where five thousand people are standing in a field and then ...
After more than two sleepless days, running through savage terrain, Greig Hamilton didn’t know if he was going to finish one of the most gruelling psychological assaults in sport. He was metres away from the finish line, a yellow gate made famous in a Netflix documentary; a race he’d dreamed ...
Loading…(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){var ql=document.querySelectorAll('A[quiz],DIV[quiz],A[data-quiz],DIV[data-quiz]'); if(ql){if(ql.length){for(var k=0;k<ql.length;k++){ql[k].id='quiz-embed-'+k;ql[k].href="javascript:var i=document.getElementById('quiz-embed-"+k+"');try{qz.startQuiz(i)}catch(e){i.start=1;i.style.cursor='wait';i.style.opacity='0.5'};void(0);"}}};i['QP']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','https://take.quiz-maker.com/3012/CDN/quiz-embed-v1.js','qp'); Got a good quiz question?Send Newsroom your questions. The post Newsroom daily quiz, Wednesday 24 April appeared first on Newsroom. ...
The following interview with former Green Party MP Sue Kedgley came about because she features in the new memoir Hine Toa by activist Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku; the two knew each other at the University of Auckland in the early 70s, when they were both took on leadership roles in the ...
COMMENTARY:By Murray Horton New Zealand needs to get tough with Israel. It’s not as if we haven’t done so before. When NZ authorities busted a Mossad operation in Auckland 20 years ago, the government didn’t say: “Oh well, Israel has the right to defend itself.” No, it arrested, prosecuted, ...
NEWSMAKERS:By Vijay Narayan, news director of FijiVillage Blessed to be part of the University of Fiji (UniFiji) faculty to continue to teach and mentor those who want to join our noble profession, and to stand for truth and justice for the people of the country. I was privileged to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Three weeks from now, some of us will be presented with a mountain of budget papers, and just about all of us will get to hear about them on radio, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dan Lowry, Ice Sheet & Climate Modeller, GNS Science Hugh Chittock/Antarctica New Zealand, CC BY-SA As the climate warms and Antarctica’s glaciers and ice sheets melt, the resulting rise in sea level has the potential to displace hundreds of millions of ...
The government's plan to reintroduce a three strikes regime is being strongly opposed by lawyers, who argue there is no evidence it reduces crime or helps people rehabilitate. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dan Jerker B. Svantesson, Professor specialising in Internet law, Bond University Do Australian courts have the right to decide what foreign citizens, located overseas, view online on a foreign-owned platform? Anyone inclined to answer “yes” to this question should perhaps also ask ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Giovanni E Ferreira, NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow, Institute of Musculoskeletal Health, University of Sydney Last week in a post on X, owner of the platform Elon Musk recommended people look into disc replacement if they’re experiencing severe neck or back pain. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Hayward, Emeritus Professor of Public Policy, RMIT University anek.soowannaphoom/Shutterstock NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey caught the headlines yesterday, courtesy of a blistering speech condemning the latest GST carve-up. New South Wales, he claimed, would be A$11.9 billion worse off over the ...
While police are "broadly in favour", the government's proposed anti-gang laws are facing pushback from lawyers, rights groups and former gang members. ...
While police are "broadly in favour", the government's proposed anti-gang laws are facing pushback from lawyers, rights groups and former gang members. ...
By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has arrived at Kokoda Station, Northern province, at the start of his state visit to Papua New Guinea. Both Albanese and Prime Minister James Marape will meet with the locals and the Northern Provincial government before they begin their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Wallace, Professor, School of Politics Economics & Society, Faculty of Business Government & Law, University of Canberra Shutterstock An important principle was invoked by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week in defence of the government’s Future Made in Australia industry ...
Here’s something for Labour to bang on about till the next election, commission a local version, and keep on banging on about it till everyone groks it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/17/tax-cuts-for-the-rich_n_1889686.html
Ah, reality comes in to bite the neo-liberal economists again but I’m sure that they’ll just continue to ignore it. After all, if they went around acknowledging that their theory didn’t work then they wouldn’t be able to continue to justify capitalism.
Neo-Liberalism is only one facet of capitalism.
Quite.
After the great depression both sides of the political fence agreed to putting the capitalist system in chains so as to serve mankind. About 30 years ago, the chains were unlocked by those who had forgotten what damage it will wreak to society.
Indeed.
Unbridled anarcho-capitalism is a distinct type of capitalism.
Yeah. It sits within the set of capitalisms marked: “Do not actually exist” on the ven diagram of ‘What is capitalism’
Yeah… it doesn’t exist… anarcho-capitalism is an oxymoron.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
indeed it does exist (though I can’t think of any real world examples – which is a good thing)
Though neo-liberalism, taken to tit’s logical conclusion, would lead to a system not to dissimilar to Anarcho-capitalism. Prebble once mused that police could be privtised which would fit into a Anarcho-capitalism model
though I can’t think of any real world examples – which is a good thing
I always thought Somalia was the nearest thing to its inevitable result…
The problem is that given those set of characteristics and that there is no institution to constrain violence, then I’d expect it to rapidly do a Somalia…. Warlords and personal fiefdoms.
It has been raised here many times as a question for libertarians of various shades. For some reason they seem to avoid answering this as an objection. The nearest that anyone gets to it is postulate something that looks astonishing like “because I said so….”
the rule of law could arbitrarily set in an anarcho-capitalist society based purely on the whims of which ever agency or individual owns the contract for the police force. But then again, another person has no constraint on owning and creating their own security force so, you are quite right, the end result would be rulers of their own fiefdoms.
Somalia is a good case study I guess but it doesn’t have the massive corporatism (as far as I am aware) which would result from a Western anarcho-capitalist society.
nah, it’s a load of wank.It’s square circleism, which is why it dosenae exist. Sure, there’s people blathering about what it might look like, but that doesn’t make it exist. FFS, timecube!!
What do you need for capitalism? you need defined property rights, enforced by a legal authority. Pretty hard to build that in anarchy, which is the fucking absence of legal authority.
It’s anarcho-Capitalism because it advocates removal of the state.
But you know best.
have a read of what they say. lots of talk about what sort of things would be ‘justifiable’. Justifiable to whom? is a question that doesn’t get mentioned a lot.
That’s not anarchy, it’s minarchy.
You could argue that capitalism might be emergent from a state of anarchy, but then you just delay the squaring of the circle. How can you set up the social infrastructure capitalism needs without enforceable property rights? And if you don’t have enforceable property rights how is it capitalism?
It’s just silly.
You might find this interesting, PB:
http://c4ss.org/content/4043
Only had a quick scan myself as quite busy but will have a longer read later
From a quick read, yeah, s/he seems to get it. Thanks.
Feudalism basically Contrarian
anarcho-capitalism IS happening already! (there is a distortion of Gen X values for ya
I’m not sure they had forgotten at all. They could quite possibly have been saying to themselves… “we’ve got 30 or so years to make a killing out the chaos this will cause before the whole thing implodes.” The financiers make money on rising and falling markets… volatilaty is good.
DtB. The theory works just fine and as intended. The lies given to us over the reason for applying the theory and its intended consequences are the problem.
+1
its like saying that the Americans and the EU are stupid for bailing out the bankers yet again. Haven’t they learnt this strategy doesn’t work?
When in fact it works very well, for the bankers and their top echelon mates.
Says a lot about the ridiculous world of disconnected, politically driven theory we live in when somebody has to do a study to ‘find’ – to all intent and purposes – that ‘hitting your thumb with a hammer’ results in a sore thumb.
The question is why we allow such crackpot bullshit (repeated hammer + thumb = pleasure) to gain any measure of importance in our lives? And if the answer is because we ‘have no choice’ insofar as all ‘our’ politicians push crackpot b/s, partly or wholly because self promoting corporate, politically motivated media generally embrace such crackpot b/s and denigrate any politician who doesn’t – then what are we to do?
Any answers?
Bill, one answer might be for Kiwis to become less self-depreciating in favour of self-assurance and assertion. That is a big ask!!
Become a tad more (gasp!) Aussie like, in other words. Just a little, mind you.
ontological reductionism.
levels of discourse
reduction by levels of discourse
may lead to epistemological reductionism
ontological reductionism.
levels of discourse
reduction by levels of discourse
may lead to epistemological reduction
Spring Creek mgmt “going through the motions”.-bowel motions upon the Greymouth
Islamic anti-U.S backlash reaches over 30 countries
FF?-increased U.S commitment to M.E?
“let us not Love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth”
And it’s taken them how long to figure this out??? 1 person can only spend so much in 1 day where as 100000 spend enough to sustain a small town.
“Tax cuts for rich linked to income inequality, not income growth”
In other news, finger cuts for concert pianists linked to more clumsy playing, not less.
Just did a ‘future lifetime’ costing of rich people’s unpaid fines and charges, its trillions of dollars
lost to the tax payers. Its a pity because welfare is one of the most cost efficient ways of
providing for the poorest yet found, lowers cost to disease, ends ghettos, abates crime at
its beginnings, unlike wealth that sees the richest run off with massive unreturned stolen money.
The rich even have schemes, Ponsi schemes,… if only we were to stop the rich starting
finance companies….
…or are we to expect a percentage of people in whatever walk of life to fall through the
gaps, and so a lifetime costing of some benefitaries is essential moronic, worse
discriminatory, since those entitled to welfare aren’t criminal financial fraudsters.
KidsCan and feeding the masses.
From what we saw on Campbell Live last night, the “food” provided was lunch-box fillers. Doughy, bland snack bars, tiny raisin packets and catering size tins of baked beans and a small tub of peaches in syrup and some loaves of bread. Yes, some schools are getting (One-piece-of-fresh-fruit-one-day-a-week) – that is not a daily ration either. Yet Key and Co are being let off the hook here by this really well meaning organisation – being frequently quoted on programmes like Q+A as the answer – they are a start, yes, but not the answer.
I semi watched Campbell whilst on the phone: what really pissed me off was the comments from viewers at the end, three of five said words to the effect that the parents were to blame (read it has nothing to do with money). It would seem to me that we have a very nasty attitude as a society to those less well off than ourselves, “kill the poor” seems to be the default setting for “middle NZ”. No wonder Key gets elected.
Its the inevitable result of a broken down divided society, who has been told at an individual level, its all about you. Worst of all. people who are inclined to feel its actually all about them, also think they understand what is happening in the world, ou know they watch CNN, SKY News etc, which creates a disconnect inside them, that the poor, and those in poverty, is largely a choice they have made, its all their fault for being poor and impoverished.
What these people fail to appreciate is that this has been designed, like the financial system, it cant currently be any other way, but because people are so stupid/selfish, they don’t realise that they too are set to become the poor and impoverished, somewhere along the timeline.
Perhaps if people could get this through their thick heads, they may start to understand their views are going to become a self fulfilling prophecy they will not have seen coming.
When our fellow human beings lose, we all lose!
Thanks Muz, I will put the positive side back on. Occasionally I get a very dark attitude with my fellow humans, which sort of clashes with my preferred modus operandi of doing something about it for other humans. And If the glum thing overcomes me I will take sly pleasure in the discomfort of newly impoverished “aspirants”.
Wilkinson R. Why is violence more common where inequality is greater? Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 2004;1036:1-12
Bored, I think we are witnessing a symptom rather than a cause.
gist Smile, and the world smiles back.
Why isn’t anyone pointing out that this “food in low decile schools because low income families don’t have enough money to feed their children” caper is just one more banana skin on the big slippery reversion to Poor Law thinking? Nobody wants to see hungry kids at school, but we can’t let this get in the way of what this means in the bigger scheme of things. We’ve already accepted food banks as a legitimate part of our formal welfare system – government refers people to food banks for God’s sake, and who would’ve predicted that back in 1991? We’ve also got Whanau Ora – sounds great because it’s supposedly about giving power back to Maori and who can say that’s a bad thing? Won’t be long though when we hear Key and Bennett saying it’s such a success that we’re handing welfare over to the community to deal with because “they’re so good at it”. They’ve all but done it with our young people. The Left are playing right into the hands of the greedy money fiends by letting us slip slowly but surely back into the deserving/undeserving mire which our current welfare system was designed to get us out of. It’s not hard to see what Key/English/Joyce/Bennett et al are doing and why they want this to happen.
We’ve also got Whanau Ora – sounds great because it’s supposedly about giving power back to Maori and who can say that’s a bad thing? Won’t be long though when we hear Key and Bennett saying it’s such a success that we’re handing welfare over to the community to deal with because “they’re so good at it”.
Problem is, Maori are better off running their own welfare, simply because the mainstream is so crap at it.
Maori are better at serving the social needs of their communities, if funded appropriately.
Hear thru the kumara vine that funding discrimination is occuring at the DHB board level regretably
centralisation of contracts etc
No real issue with Whanau Ora as long as it isnt used to replace the current welfare system, though it seems to me, from the series that was running in the herald some weeks ago, it appeared that tribal groups were using it to dicate to members how they should live their lives. One woman was told to give up her phone/internet service, even though it would be a false economy.
It would seem to me that we have a very nasty attitude as a society to those less well off than ourselves, “kill the poor” seems to be the default setting for “middle NZ”. No wonder Key gets elected.
I think Chris Trotter was right on the Union Report this week. There really is a nasty streak of authoritarianism in this country.
We’ve never really had to fight for our freedoms (yes, I know the World Wars, but we were never directly imperilled), they were just developed as this country progressed. We imagine ourselves as a caring society, but that is just part of the national myth.
Pete, you are right on to it!
The ultamite irony is that those people you mentioned will have benefited from Labour’s 1935-84 welfare/social security state. From free school milk to Housing Corp loans and everything in between.
Its pretty simple, when the powerful get arrogant they ignore their duties and start
blaming the great unwashed. Welfare is the most efficient way to save trillions in
costs on the people, from disease, to poor housing, to poor nutrient, to ghettos,
to having a healthy skilled workforce. Essentially National aren’t about to attack
everyone, remove all business and in work welfare, they are only going to remove
all support from a very few, those most likely to be ignored by the system.
Its just nasty and despicable, and yes you guessed it, cost more in the long run.
In more crime, more disease, more run down housing, more social disruption.
Bored 2.1
Yep go and read some of the comments on the program. I had to recheck that I was still living in NZ. I tell you it’s scarey the way this is going, it’s standard Nact practice divide and conquer, but this time we are all wired up to the web, and the war is in here!
I think that more and more people are getting fed up with the party line bullshit, and are looking for something different, I can’t say that whats written in here is true, it’s not, it’s opinion, it’s the opinion of a broad spectrum of people and in here apart from the trolls we are all equal (well moderators above equal) and no laughs at what you say. Unless it’s complete troll or stupid talk then the above equal part comes in. And the fact that the name of the Standard and other blogs have been mentioned in the MSM (thanks Bryce and Gordon) people have to come and look (I could be talking out of my ass here But Lprent are the visits by new people up and new members up as well?) If they aren’t then lets hope for more media coverage and a member to win Lotto to help fund. There are some very knowledgeable people in here from all walks of life. Unfortunately until we get more readers their voice is lost in the babble of MSM drivel.
What I am trying to get at is this unless we adapt to the way things are happening on the net, in the Blogs, the MSM and to the way the Nats are using the net we will lose and keep losing. They have the joyous intelligence of The Whale, and of course their tame troll Farrar. And of course Hooten, king of the shout down what ever he is.
You can see it in the coverage of the ABC fight, Half of the insider leak I suspect was probably from the fantasy of Whale and his boyfriend Duncan. The response was immediate and in some cases way over the top and it keeps happening. And we get bad press the Rabid left blog shit from the likes of JA on the Herald and the same on Stuff.
We have Paula Benefit stripping away our rights, Widows will lose about $8.30 a week, if you miss 3 calls benefit slashed, turn down a job, benefit slashed, fail a drug test? Yep Again benefit slashed. And I really don’t have the energy or knowlege to go into what Parata is doing to education I need to learn. I am shocked at the bullshit coming from Brownlee in CHCH. Then there’s that happy Joyce creator of the latest white whale MOBIE so that makes him Capt Ahab and we all know how that ended.
And it keeps happening. And why does it keep happening ? Because there is bugger all opposition to the plans of the Natcs, they get away with lying, cheating, bullying, etc and still they are not taken to task
Why NOT?
There needs to be change major change in the Labour party they need to get back the people who at the moment know that NO ONE gives a shit about them. They are the forgotten kids of 16 and 17 they are the next generation of voters, but if they see the shit that Key pulls, and gets away with, ALL the fucking time, no wonder they just don’t bother. The infighting in the Labour Party must stop it has to. it is diverting attention away from what is important, but what is important to the LP at the moment ? It seems that power rather than their constituents is the important thing. They forget we voted them in. DID they not get the message that was sent at the last election? it seems not. They need a complete clean out a democratically elected leader Get the cronies out of the picture, (this ME politics is bullshit.) how many more seats do they have to lose (hopefully to the greens BUT I fear not) to finally get the message?
Wow sorry i needed to clear my thoughts and a sleepless night don’t help. go ahead and pick it apart I look forward to any and all criticism. Oh and please DNFTT.
Bored, I think you are on to something here.
On a more positive note, here are some creative young people trying to build some momentum to do something about it..
#FeedOurFuture
https://www.facebook.com/FeedingOurFuture
Lets pick up some shovels and as an act of civil disobedience, turn up at every low decile school and plant fruit trees in their grounds, as a symbol of the community wanting to feed it’s children.
I would say the civil disobedience is NOT taking action to assist where it is obviously needed!
Well said AAMC
Several schools ran Enviroschools vegetable gardens with the assistance of grants, and Professor Delorus Umbridge of the 2009/2011 National Government scrapped the funding, but was forced to reinstate it partially because of public outcry.
Other schools are planting areas of the ground in orchard through grants from their local councils. It will take a good 5 years plus for these trees to start producing sufficiently though … what happens in the meantime?
Well for one, hopefully Bill Scrooge and Joky Hen and their mean administration will be history.
There is an interesting article in this morning’s Herald discussing a JB Were report which raises concerns about NZ’s financial system and suggests that the Reserve Bank should be taking an active role in suppressing the value of the kiwi dollar.
Researcher Bernard Doyle is quoted as saying “[t]he RBNZ is one of the few central banks running relatively orthodox monetary policy” and that it was a “rarity in the global economy,” with positive interest rates and no policy to print money. “Unfortunately, in a world where the major central banks are breaking all the rules, this is not an advantage,” he is quoted as saying.
With the US, Europe and the UK printing dollars and providing cheap credit the NZ dollar will inevitably continue to increase in value as Asian banks seek out the highest interest rates. So the export sector is in for another clobbering.
And the Government’s response? Do nothing and leave it to the market. The only problem is that there is clearly not a free market operating.
Key naturally said that concerns about the financial system were “nonsense”.
Oh for a government that actually thought it should try and achieve some good …
ms
Thanks for bringing that to us. Most illuminating.
Him and his rich mates are doing well out of it so it must be good and if other people aren’t doing well out of it, well, that’s their choice.
Are they short on the Kiwi $$ then….Or perhaps telling their clients they should be.
Whatever the case, when a mob like JB Were publish a report, there is good reason for it, and its not altruistic!
I see it is the first anniversary of the occupy movement. So how did that storming of the Bastille, that many here were sharpening their pitchforks for, pan out? snigger.
CHANGE OF FOCUS: The Occupy movement has influenced the national dialogue about economic equality, with the word “occupy” itself becoming part of the public lexicon.
VARIED IMPACT: The protest movement is credited with a range of more concrete accomplishments, from influencing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s about-face on a millionaire’s tax to helping to save an Atlanta church and veterans’ homes from foreclosure in Atlanta and Minneapolis. In Rhode Island, Occupy Providence won a temporary day center to serve the homeless during the winter.
http://news.yahoo.com/summary-box-occupy-achieved-6-months-174602618.html
Small achievements are still achievements, and Occupy has taught societies a lot and connected struggling classes around the world. Connecting struggling classes worldwide is a pretty massive change in global discourse. The fact that your even scoffing at it while probably watching spanish mining strikes, a French socialist president and the Arab fall on the the tele news, all which are connected to the change in discourse, shows how clueless you are to the flow on effects of a connected global movement.
Maybe the PoAL with make it a bit more relative to NZ for you monkey breath.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=occupy+movement
they’ve taken a leaf out of your book and are going to climb the empire’s state building and get shot to pieces like your arguments do most days here primitive primate!
King Kong They just did that to amuse you oh reader of philosophy.
The article, KK, reports that the occupy movement remains intact and in good heart in the USA, for starters.
‘Dodgy’ John Banks protected by ‘shonky’ John Key?
The (NOT-SO) ‘HONORABLE’ John Banks – showing all the class of a rat with a gold tooth?
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=449542975077413&set=a.449542061744171.101311.100000651420214&type=1&comment_id=1279393
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption campaigner’
http://www.dodgyjohnhasgone.com
Heard a quote from Jay Leno –
“Politics is show business for ugly people”.
“Politics is the entertainment branch of the Military-Industrial Complex” ~ Frank Zappa
idlegus 6.1
+1
idlegus 6.1
+1
Watching Key on TV3 this morning and when asked about Tainui not coming to a Hui on Water? With a shrug of his shoulders, “It’s a free world” What a bullshit answer. That’s the sort of answer you give if you just don’t care about the question, or what the out come could be, It just shows what a culturally insensitive pig he can be. And he is just going to bulldoze these thefts through at any cost and to hell with the consequences. And the bribed and blind middle class are going to hand it to him on a plate, and the rest of us will pay for it for ever.
Right on, David H, you have got it in one!!
I found this really nice map of what they expect to be able to extract from Afghanistan.
About a trillion dollars worth it seems
you didn’t include the opium or marijuana and Carlyle Haliburton and blackwater(now has a new name).
The US war machine has already made $1.4 trillion Dollars out of Afghanistan!
Thank God I’ve got you to remind me
What century is it going to be before they can get a stable enough security situation to set up any mining operations of scale?
Mining and trading has been going on in Afghanistan for about 6000 years. The current events are just a blip.
Sheesh, trav. That map misses the return on the US$7.8 b investment in the TAPI pipeline…of which NZ is a part funder.
Remember the proposed oil pipeline to shift oil from the north of Afghanistan to the Pakistan borders. Was it the real reason for USA getting into Afghanistan?
no-one remembers it because it was a myth or literally a pipe dream with no prospect of success.
The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline (TAPI) just got signed off the other week. It’s a gas pipeline. Not oil. It was first proposed back in the mid-nineties and the NYT reported at the time on how it was a wonderful idea insofar as it sidelined Iran and Russia.
But the Taliban never controlled the north of Afghanistan and so could never have guaranteed its safety, hence, perhaps the massacre at Mazar e Sharif in 1998 was, at least in part, a clumsy attempt by them to secure control of the vital NW region?
Pre 2001 the Taliban had attempted to give over Osama bin Ladin on a number of occasions. But the US were never exactly helpful in securing his extradition to a third country.
By late 2001, the only pre-text that would have allowed the US to invade was if the state of Afghanistan could be tied to the terrorism of Sept 01. (To invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter) And so we are sold the story of the Taliban being in cahoots with Al qaeda and therefore responsible for the twin towers etc.
And the Taliban tried to give up Osama bin Ladin again. And again the US were less than helpful.
If you look at the proposed route of the TAPI pipeline and the position of major bases (which can will remain operational under either a residual US led force backed by mercaneries or by mercanaries on their own – there are already thousands employed in Afghanistan), there is a rather obvious correlation…SW Afghanistan running up to Turkmenistan.
btw. India finally signed on to the TAPI project (welching on an agreement with Iran for a different pipeline) because they got nuclear technology from the US. And the only reason they got nuclear technology from the US was because P Goff gave up NZ’s veto on the matter.
After 9/11 the Taliban agreed to give Osama up if the US provided some evidence that he was involved/responsible for the attacks. The US wouldn’t/couldn’t.
Its also interesting that the FBI’s most wanted page for Osama bin Laden never included any apportion of blame for 9/11
“The FBI page states: “Usama Bin Laden is wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. These attacks killed over 200 people. In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world.”
When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on the FBI’s web page, Rex Tomb, the FBI’s Chief of Investigative Publicity, is reported to have said, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2006/0608-BinLaden.html
Before 9/11 the Taliban had Osama on trial for the Tanzania and Kenya bombings. But they had no evidence and so asked the US to supply what evidence they held for the prosecution. The US had already sent them a few cruise missiles and in response to a request for evidence sent a taped ’60 Minutes’ TV interview and a copy of some published magazine article. And so, the Taliban let him go.
And there are other, on record, instances of the Taliban in discussion with the US seeking to be rid of Osama. (The US didn’t recognise the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan so there was no extradition treaty) All they wanted was some…any…pretext from the US and they would have handed him over to Saudi Arabia. But when you read the record, it appears the US wanted Osama to be just where he was.
Pre 2001, the Talban even tried to extradite him to Saudi Arabia becasue he had broken a religious edict to not speak of terrorist events. And the Saudi’s refused to ‘play ball’.
And don’t forget that Osama Bin Laden came from a very wealthy Saudi Arabian family with extensive oil and other business contacts in the US.
I’ve heard of wars for oil, but wars for copper and iron? Give me a break. That kind of idea is just so BC.
what about lithium
Well half the world’s lithium is in Bolivia. If it is anything like as large the price will likely drop. but it’s all unproven. And it’s hardly a rare metal and war engendering
Afghan mineral resources are worth a lot of money, sure. But that’s just icing on the cake.
The main course are the pipeline routes for oil and gas, allowing the volatile Persian/Middle East area to be completely avoided. That’s where the real strategic driver is. The ability to bypass the Straits of Hormuz and to bypass Russia is absolute magic.
West Papua.
Bougainville.
Chile
post colonial nationalism v self determination. Neither of these are about copper.
In the same way that Western African wars had nothing to do with diamonds.
Hypothetically (of course) I would be interested to see how much of a flying fuck PG would have given if the Panguna mine didn’t exist. Or indeed how much of a grievance the locals would have had if the’d received more than 1% of the mine profits (another 19% to PNG govt).
Many/most wars are, at the root, about money. You just need a bit more copper to get the same conflict intensity than you do oil or gold.
“Many/most wars are, at the root, about money.”
i don’t know, religion might give money a run for it’s money (mind the pun)
I know you don’t know.
You’re an idiot.
Bullshit, while Freeport McMoRan continues to pay Jakarta it’s all about copper.
Indonesia has claimed all of the western half of New Guinea since 1949, long before the mine, which only takes up a physically very small proportion of the province. The natives’ desire for independence would exist without the mine too.
before the mine? Sure. But was it before surveys which showed the masses of ore was there?
http://wpik.org/Src/invasion.html#incursions
Public subsidizing polluting industries
National’s Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading and Other Matters) Amendment Bill (PDF) effectively kneecaps the ETS and ensures that New Zealand will fail to meet its international obligations. Giving the public only two weeks to make submissions on that bill, the amendments to the Climate Change Response Act 2002 puts a very flimsy case for economic growth ahead of the environment… In other words it lets the polluters off the hook…
With those who serve, the government is giving with one hand and taking with the other
Market rentals for base housing, coupled with the dirty little secret of NZDF housing getting sold off and taken apart bit by bit, which will eat up the 7% payrise that all NZDF personell are getting.
Is there any reason why soldiers cannot form a union?
Those who see the forces as a possible respite from transience, insecurity and poverty should really think again…
Decimation of a formerly secure US middle class community
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-are-you-seeing-what-im-seeing
CV, take credit for this excellent and true quotation.
CV, take credit for this excellent and true quotation..
Pablo over at Kiwipolitico has a good article about the infeasibility of the US service economy.
And we’re following the same path to economic stagnation and collapse.
i rememeber when the ‘services economy’ was the current propaganda in Aoteoroa; Yawn and despair. More of the sl word (for those that do not Think like moi)
A bit ironic that the Topless Princess Kate and husband should be welcomed by traditionally garbed women in the Solomon Islads who were – umm – topless. We are a weird lot aren’t we?
ianmac 12
it’s all down to culture, fashion and societal norms – that get to be tourniquets on us
The Onion is running a story (obviously satire) that Obama’s popularity has spiked after he punched a Wall Street Banker in the face. Makes you wonder though …
Don’t even think about it mickysavage… You’re already popular enough 🙂
MEDIA ADVISORY:
Photo of a banner that will be outside John Banks electorate office
27 Gillies Ave Newmarket between 12.30 and 1.30pm
TODAY Tuesday 18 September 2012
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=449542975077413&set=a.4495
The purpose of this protest is to hand over a letter to John Banks c/- his electorate staff, to ask whether he would be prepared to be the MP to present the following petition to the House (given that he is purportedly so concerned about the slackness of local government electoral law?
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/115686/banks-welcomes-changes-to-'unfair'-donations-law
Mr Banks says the changes are well overdue.
“As Charles Dickens said in 1838 the law is an ass – and it’s important that the Government cleans it up. No candidate for public office should go through what I had to go through.”
In order to prevent this happening to any other candidate – I look forward to The ‘Honorable’ John Banks, MP for Epsom, agreeing to present this petition, at his earliest available opportunity.
“That the House conduct an urgent inquiry into the findings of the Police investigation into the allegations that the Hon. John Archibald Banks, CNZM QSO, submitted a false donation return in respect to the Auckland Council Mayoral election 2010 – that it was not unlawful for the Hon. John Archibald Banks, CNZM QSO to sign and transmit his candidate’s declaration of expenses without first personally checking and verifying that the information provided (by another party) was accurate.”
(It is noteworthy that the first signature on this petition is that of Kim Dotcom.)
(Photocopies of this petition will be available for media.)
Actually getting this request to staff at John Banks’ electorate office is somewhat complicated owing to the fact that I have been trespassed from it for 2 years arising from my being arrested in it, on 18 June 2012.
Perhaps the Police will be able to help expedite proceedings?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/7124255/Protesters-stage-sit-in-at-Banks-office
(Have appearance in Ak District Court (Albert St) tomorrow Wed 19 September 2012 – matter will be adjourned – but will still have a protest outside
Court from 8.30am – 9am.)
CRI- 2012 – 004 – 113 21
CHARGE: Wilful trespass
Courtroom 11
TIME: 9.00am
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption campaigner’
http://www.dodgyjohnhasgone.com
The mask slips.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser
Perhaps Mother Jones would sit in on Key’s discussion to his inner circle. Scary stuff Joe.
Esquire: The Worst Thing Romney Has Said About Americans Yet
To this moment, I guarantee you, Romney is probably astonished at what all the fuss is about. This is simply the way the world is. There is himself, Willard Romney, and his perfect family, and his perfect life, and there is The Help, and The Help gets drunk on the job, and prunes the shrubbery badly, and pockets the silverware, and makes off with the odd can of salmon out of the pantry. He is who he is today because his breeding and his genes and his god have arranged him to be through a serious of immutable laws against which only a fool or The Help would presume to argue. He is what his golden life has made him to be, and his golden life was only the bare minimum of that to which god and nature entitled him. To ask him to doubt any of this is to ask him to doubt gravity or the movement of the tides.
Ill guess you are familiar with the Romney family background, the mormons in govt, the oaths, prophecy’s and the like Joe?
Not to mention the Mike Leavitt history, and so on….
Mormon theology visualised muzza.
Thanks Joe, I’ll check it out tonight…
Reince Priebus: Romney was “on message” regarding the 47% comment.
Govt chases debt of one cent
No one from the ministry would be interviewed. Instead it issued a statement saying it knows the one cent overpayment looks silly, but that it sends millions of letters a year through a system which doesn’t distinguish between amounts of debt.
Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/Govt-chases-debt-of-one-cent/tabid/1607/articleID/269608/Default.aspx#ixzz26mAy1k7f
Compare to
Education Pay
On th NovoPay website.
Many people may notice differences in their pay of up to plus or minus 10 cents. The reason for this is that Novopay, the new schools’ payroll service, rounds each component of pay separately and the accumulation may result in the up to 10 cents difference.
Season 4 of the excellent “The Thick Of It” is currently playing in the UK, as someone kindly noted in one of the social threads recently.
Do you think the David Shearer and the Labour leadership team are watching? I certainly hope so. The latest episode, aired a couple of days ago, is all about them.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtmtk2_the-thick-of-it-s04e02-hdtv-www-movie1k-ch_shortfilms
(If you don’t have time to watch the whole thing, start about 3 and a half minutes in)
I will look forward to Shearer’s next speech where he refers to the “quiet bat-people” of NZ.
Utter genius. Who knew British TV had this outstanding satire about NZ’s current ‘shad-cab’?
First rule of Breakfast club -don’t talk about breakfast club!
Btw who’s Malcom?
Politics isn’t going to solve it unless the community forces them!
https://www.facebook.com/FeedingOurFuture
Speaking of quiet bat people…
A site dedicated to feeding hungry children describes them as “…starving to be better people.”
😯
How about,
“We are committed to using our time and expertise to feed our children, the future of our country.”
Which site?
How about “Starving to not deserve to starve”
why don’t you suggest it on their page, participation and debate is what’s required.
Quite true… as Thom Hartmann on RT’s ‘The Big Picture’ pointed out a few months ago, the issue of African-American civil rights wasn’t among any political party’s policies until the protests started and the politicians saw the groundswell of public opinion.
Meaningful change has to start at a grassroots level, once a critical number is reached, the meme/movement/thinking hits mainstream. I wonder if we are beginning to see this in NZ with the issues of children in poverty and inequality. At present many are in denial or anger (“it’s the parents fault for making bad choices”, etc) which are just two of the 5 stages of awakening:
http://dont-tread-on.me/?p=454
Could child-poverty and inequality, in which the state of both are an affront to what it means to be a New Zealander and the principles this country was founded on, be the trigger that results in NZ’s version of the Arab-spring uprisings?
Well, somebody did say a few days ago that the next distraction from NACT would be announcing a royal visit.
Excellent! Time for a few demonstrations against the government, Royal privilege, etc!
Royal Visit? – groan.
another million or two wasted on nothing while children go hungry etc etc.
what I want to know is who is the Mcguiness institute who are “voluntarily” assisting the constitutional advisory panel?
and why?
So who is paying them?
Where do they get their money from?
These questions must be answered if democracy is to be preserved in New Zealand.
Is that you gosman?
THE ‘DEAR JOHN’ LETTER – handed over to Electorate staff at PROTEST OUTSIDE JOHN BANKS’ ELECTORATE OFFICE 27 Gillies Ave, Newmarket, today, Tuesday 18 September 2012:
The following letter was given to John Banks’ electorate staff by Jax (I have been trespassed for 2 years from this office, having been arrested for wilful trespass on 18 June 2012 – Court case tomorrow
Wed. 19 September 2012 CRI- 2012- 004 -113 21
Auckland District Courtroom 11, Albert St
9am (Protest outside from 8.30am)
_________________
OPEN LETTER TO THE ‘HONORABLE’ JOHN BANKS – MP FOR EPSOM
18 September 2012
Dear John,
RE: http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/115686/banks-welcomes-changes-to-'unfair'-donations-law
Mr Banks says the changes are well overdue.
“As Charles Dickens said in 1838 the law is an ass – and it’s important that the Government cleans it up. No candidate for public office should go through what I had to go through.”
Given your above-mentioned publicly-stated concerns about the local electoral law ‘being an ass’, and needing to be ‘cleaned up’ – I would like to give you the opportunity to ‘put your money where your mouth is’ (as it were), on this matter.
I am formally requesting that YOU please be the Member of Parliament to present the following petition to the House, at your earliest available opportunity:
“That the House conduct an urgent inquiry into the findings of the Police investigation into the allegations that the Hon. John Archibald Banks, CNZM QSO, submitted a false donation return in respect to the Auckland Council Mayoral election 2010 – that it was not unlawful for the Hon. John Archibald Banks, CNZM QSO to sign and transmit his candidate’s declaration of expenses without first personally checking and verifying that the information provided (by another party) was accurate.”
You may find it to be noteworthy that the first signature on this petition is that of Kim Dotcom, whose financial assistance to your 2010 Auckland Mayoral campaign, you may recall?
Looking forward to your prompt response to this VERY important matter.
Kind regards,
Penny Bright
‘Anti-corruption campaigner’
2010 Auckland Mayoral candidate
Listening to The Panel and an interview with a Banks Peninsula school about their closing down..after Campbell Live’s programme yesterday about another school in Christchurch.
Sounds like the ideas from ‘Disaster Capitalism’ by Naomi Klein and what happened to New Orleans after Katrina.
The Social Security (Benefit Categories and Work Focus) Amendment Bill 67-1:
This new, 191 page long, bill can be found under the following link:
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2012/0067/latest/DLM4542304.html
The new proposed benefit regime is intended to come into force from 15 July 2013, and it contains legal provisions under which the OUTSOURCING of assessments on beneficiaries for work capacity, of “work preparation exercises” and of “administrative services” will be made possible to private non government agencies and service providers.
There are obligations for ALL beneficiaries, incl. beneficiary parent(s) and caregiver(s):
● A NEW section 60 GAG by section 39 of Act to place obligation of beneficiary to work with “service providers”;
● Sanctions can be imposed under section 117 if client fails to comply with this;
● Attendance of “work preparation exercises” can be expected under section 60Q;
● See also section 125A (amended) re contracts with “administration service providers”.
Sole Parent Support:
● This new, more restrictive benefit is covered by new sections 20A to 20H;
● already announced “social obligations” will be expected.
Supported Living Payment:
● The new benefit that can be granted on grounds of sickness, injury or disability, and which is supposed to replace the invalid’s benefit, is covered by sections 40A to 40K;
● Supporting living payment recipients exempted ONLY if terminally ill, or if found to be suffering from conditions that are likely to deteriorate or “not improve”;
Consequential Amendments:
Re “supported living payment” benefit – see clause 88 re some changes in schedule 6 for present IB
Drug Testing Obligations:
and easily WINZ will place such obligations on job-seeker beneficiaries that are asked to have drug tests done on them for jobs where employers require this;
● A 50 per cent cut to the benefit can be imposed if a client/applicant fails such a drug;
● section 12J is to be amended to limit rights of appeals to the Appeal Authority if “medical” reasons are given (see sections 116C and 102B) for failing drug tests;
● WINZ will “compensate” employers for costs of drug tests where clients “fail” to pass them, and will then reclaim those costs from the clients (!);
● Beneficiaries who fail an initial drug test will also have to pay for re-compliance drug tests;
Social Obligations by beneficiary parents:
a) Enrol newborns with GP;
b) Participate in ECE;
c) Ensure attendance of school by children in their care
Stopping benefit payments for clients who face a warrant of arrest after 28 days of issue:
● 10 days notice, then a “cut” of the benefit can and will be imposed;
● an immediate “stop” is imposed if a beneficiary – against whom a warrant has been issued – poses a “serious risk to the public”
Disability Allowance changes and other ‘preferred supplier arrangements’:
● Possible “preferred supplier arrangements” for “procurement of goods and services” for welfare recipients in certain circumstances (see s 69C and also sections 125AA and 132AD);
● Under section 82 the C.E. can determine payment to preferred supplier or beneficiary for goods or services required as advance or special assistance needs (see also section 125AA);
● See also section 124 (1BA) for further provisions re “special assistance”.
Regulations:
● Section 132AD provides for regulations that can set harsher standards and criteria for how “disability allowance” funds paid to beneficiaries are to be used for “specified expenses”;
● Other sub-sections under section 132 provide for regulations to be made for the granting, expiry and re-granting “specified benefits” and so forth.
Re Application for Benefits:
● New sections 11E and 11H for “job seeker support” (incl. sick, injured, disabled) applicants, setting out “pre benefit activities” expected of them; new sections 11G and 11H set out consequences for applicants “failing” to meet such “activities” (incl. their spouse/partner);
● All beneficiaries appear to have to re-apply for their specified benefits (after 12 months);
● See also new sections 80BE and 80 BF re expiry, re-granting and so.
Work Ability Assessments:
● Section 88F sets out job seeker obligations for seeking employment, and under 88F (2) the C.E. must determine the capacity to work for a job seeker – granted that support because of sickness, injury or disability; this basically allows the C.E. to “over rule” medical based assessments (in some forms)!
● Hence a “deferral” for “job seekers” is discretionary and based on C.E.’s determinations;
● Section 88H (2) allows job seeker (with sickness, injury or disability) to “apply” for “deferral”.
● New sections 100B and 100C to require beneficiaries to attend and participate in work ability assessments (virtually ALL beneficiaries);
● Section 100B (4) leaves it to the C.E. to determine the way such assessments are conducted;
● Procedure(s) for doing this are determined by the C.E. or her/his staff (!!!)
● Section 100C also leaves it up to the C.E. to determine appropriate times and frequencies of re-assessments!
The existing medical appeal rights to a ‘Medical Board’ will in future be covered by a new section 10B (re-enacting section 53A), it changed only a bit
Sanctions:
● New sections 116B and 116C replace existing sections 115 and 116A for imposing sanctions of beneficiaries not meeting a range of obligations;
● Other sections address matters how other sanctions for non compliance are imposed;
● Section 116C (2) lists some exemptions from sanctions to be imposed for failing drug testing, like drug dependency, medication that is prescribed and needs to be taken by a client
Abatement:
A harsh abatement regime under section 88B (6) for jobseeker support (52 week earnings to benefit comparison); so if a person earns as much as she/he could get on a benefit within 52 weeks, that may mean, NO benefit, as a client/applicant may be expected to “save” and provide for unforeseen job-loss.
Ineligibility:
Section 88D penalises unemployed “job seeker” beneficiaries if “fellow workers” (of a union the client/applicant belongs to), caused industrial action (strikes) leading to resulting “unemployment”. This basically makes it yet more difficult to defend worker’s rights.
Appeal rights denied in certain cases:
When it comes to forms of certain payments of advances, of disability allowance costs and some other “special assistance”, there is NO right to appeal WINZ decisions!
This bill is a MONSTER bill, not only due to some controversial, excessively harsh provisions; it is so overly complex, it will be impossible to properly implement and apply in praxis. It further “over-amends” an old Act that has previously received endless amendments. The proposed changes make the Social Security Act extremely difficult to use and apply, as it is very difficult to do this already. Staff will face an administrative nightmare to use the law after all these changes. It would have been a better solution to bring in a whole new statute!
Ultimately all this will just re-enforce the reality we have already: That beneficiaries are second class, stigmatised and disowned citizens and residents in this country.
http://blog.greens.org.nz/2012/09/18/take-your-vitamins-nz/
Thank gods for the Greens providing some goddamn opposition…
thanks js, didn’t see your reply before.
Looks like they want to abolish Sickness Benefit.
I agree, it’s hard to make sense of all of that. Will the MSD have published something that interprets it?
I met a fair few people who have due to permanent health conditions been on the sickness benefit for years, while it is only meant to be a type of benefit for short to medium term sick and disabled or “incapacitated”. Really some of them should be on IB, but as most struggle to cope with WINZ staff, do not understand the law and their rights, they never dare to challenge decisions.
Cost saving has already been the agenda for years, and the government drums it into people’s heads, that there are 13 per cent of working age people on benefits, which is unaffordable. But why not compare the 320,000 benefit reliant with the total population then?
Much spin and manipulation, that is the truth. So many more thousands are supposed to take up jobs, while manufacturing goes down the toilet, jobs are harder to get and poverty is rampant even amongst low paid workers. So they are supposed to make a living by delivering each others pizza and burgers, cut each others hair and mow lawns, I suppose.
Divide and rule, that is the agenda.
weka –
This (see links) is not the MSD “spin” version, but the next best one:
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/all/files/Welfare%20_Reform_Q_and_A.pdf
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/second-stage-welfare-reforms-introduced
Of course the unemployment benefit is a lot less than sickness or invalid benefit, the outcome is obvious.
SB and UB are the same rate (IB is higher). The difference is that on SB you are not required to look for a job. Looks like they’re not going after IB this time round at a legislative level, although they are messing with it via policy.
Sickness beneficiaries have already been “work tested” since May last year – in at least some cases, where case managers or other WINZ staff (Regional Health Advisors, Regional Disability Advisors) considered them “capable” of doing some work (usually part time).
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10723662
Hence there have already been many cases, where WINZ staff members interpreted certain information supplied by doctors on new medical certificates (called now ‘work capacity certificates’) in their own “biased” manner. Yes, they have in some cases definitely over-ruled what doctors may have decided, pressuring sick persons to look for jobs.
So much is not known in the wider public, it is NOT funny.
It will all get much worse, if this bill gets passed as it is written.
So key is doing gagagags as well as the fake hui and it’s all for the court case to come.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7692845/Water-hui-boycott-strengthens-Governments-position-Key
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/maori/news/article.cfm?c_id=252&objectid=10834827&ref=rss
Deliberate and it will fail, as I have said on my post
His deliberate ignorance is not an advantage it is a weakness and the more he speaks, the more that weakness is revealed. He thinks he is smarter than he really is – but he isn’t.
http://mars2earth.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/undo-gag.html